How to Make a Rubber Ducky Comet

Before we knew what comets and asteroids looked like up close, it was popular (at least in media) to imagine them as roughly spherical, maybe a bit lumpy. The reality was way stranger. The first comet seen up close, Halley's, was actually more elongated, like a rock you might find in your back yard. As we sent space probes to more of these celestial flotsam, we found most were oddly shaped, and some downright bizarre: a double-lobed bowling pin shape kept popping up. Hartley 2, Wild 2, Kleopatra...